to think that some non-religious parents over-react just a teensy-weensy bit when their children are exposed to religion in the most benign form?

[SueBarooeeooeeooooo]

s'ok if I am. But threads complaining about this sort of thing are a regular MN feature, and I can't help thinking that some parents seem tremendously precious about it. We're Christians and it often comes up that not everyone believes the way we do, and I talk to my children about it and they wander off and scribble on the lounge walls again.

I've seen people complaining about Christian mums and tots groups, simple 'thankyou' prayers and christian charities. I am 100% ok with you bringing your children up atheist, theist, or chocolate-worshipping. Honestly, if I whipped myself up into a panic over every mention of different beliefs or none that my children encounter, I'd never get anything done.

(Please note, this is not a church schools whinge, I'm against selection on religious grounds.)

But why does the fact that we have a State religion mean that children have to follow it in school? I didn't have to be a Christian to be a Civil Servant, I don't have to be a Christian to go to hospital or use any other state institutions. Why should schools be different?

It's the Education Act, Seeker.

Good job too, I say

Beat me by 5 seconds, harpsichord!

Xposts with seeker.
it is nonsensical when you think about it.
"I would like a resident's parking permit"
"OK, are you a regular church goer?"

Because other institutions are not teaching people!

Children don't HAVE to be Christian, merely learn about the state religion.

How is education biased? Surely all children are exposed to the same stuff?

I teach in a catholic school, and we have hijab-wearing Muslim girls making the Sign of the Cross. No one seems to mind - the parents know the score when they sign up.

btw I was answering seeker in response to non-church schools, not about church schools which choose on the basis of faith.

You are making ludicrous and irrelevent comparisons.

because every school has to provide Christian worship.
because schools are permitted to discriminate against children on the basis of their parent's religion.

But the education act covers all schools in this country.

what is ludicrous about the hospital comparison?
why is the provision of state health services different from education?

I know it's the Education Act (I was so busy helping to draft other bits of it that I let the Christian bit slip through ) but WHY!

A lot of schools interpret 'broadly Christian nature' as having assemblies on being kind to animals, for example. It is very loose.

Other schools have more backbone.

scienceteacher I don't really know what you are arguing.
yes the Education Act applies to all schools (well, not quite, but anyway I see the point you are making)
so every school is required to provide an education with a Christian bias
so a biassed education.
one which is from a particular slant, and one not objective or based on fact.

You are saying that Christian children are treated differently in schools, when they are not.

OK. If I send my child to a Catholic school, then I know the score - I know that I have to believe (or pretend to believe) in transubstatiation, the Virgin Birth and the defintion of mortal sin. But I don't. I send my children to a non denominational school and they STILL come home stating as truth that Jesus died for their sins and if you're good you go to heaven!

The so-called 'bias' is about a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature - ie what they do in their assemblies. As I said, many schools interpret this very loosely, without any mention of he who died for all of us.

Actual academic education is not biased - the RS curriculum covers all major religions. It can't be expected to teach about something that doesn't exist (ie atheism).

Where am I saying that?
Some children are discriminated against in their entry to schools on the basis of their parent's religion. that is a bias, and one which would be illegal in the provision of public services elsewhere and indeed in the private sector. religious discrimination is a bias.

and the provision of education is biassed.
I never said Christian children are treated differently.
as it happens, I think the phrase "christian children" isn't really valid,
Children should be allowed to have the ability to make up their own minds rather thab assigned a religion. I am an atheist - I don't have "atheist" children.

You don't have to believe anything. But you can respect other people's beliefs. You can't fault the schools for following the law.

The powers that be obviously think that the schools have a duty to provide a spiritual curriculum where parents fail to do so.

actually if you read the thread there are lots of examples here of teachers allowing their own bias to leak into the way they teach.
it isn't just confined to assemblies in reality.

well I disagree entirely with that statement.
who are the "powers that be" and why do I have to accept they are right that my child "must receive a "spiritual" curriculum because I have "failed" to do.
no-one has any problem with our children learning about all religions.
but I personally have a problem with children being required to participate in acts of worship of a religion, any religion.

At least a Christian bias is a very positive one.

Powers that be are our lawmakers.

well there I think you show your own bias
I don't think Christianity is all that positive an influence, for the reasons I have set out in this thread.
I think that children should be allowed to make up their own minds about what religion to followed rather than being told.

How will they know where to start if we don't expose them?